Spain’s antitrust authority has reportedly fined the country’s three largest mobile network operators a total of EUR120 million (USD159 million) for charging too much for SMS messages. The Comision Nacional de la Competencia (CNC) levied the penalty after ruling that Movistar, Vodafone Spain and Orange Espana abused their dominant position in the wholesale markets for access and origination and for termination of short messages in their respective networks. With all three operators cited as having ‘a monopoly position in SMS and MMS termination services in their respective networks’, the CNC noted that the market for SMS termination services was unregulated between 2000 and 2009 (the period investigated by the watchdog). As such, the CNC claims, the trio were freely able to price the termination of SMS at very high levels, which in turn allowed them to pass these costs to consumers in the shape of higher retail prices for SMS and MMS services.

No new regulatory measures are to be introduced however, with the CNC noting that it did not consider such action appropriate as there was only evidence of overpricing in the period to 2009 and not more recently. Further, it argued that telecoms regulator the Comision del Mercado de las Telecomunicacinoes (CMT) ‘is better positioned to design the ex-ante regulation of these markets’.

As per the antitrust agency’s ruling, Movistar faces the largest fine – EUR46.490 million – while Vodafone Spain and Orange Espana will be required to pay EUR43.525 million and EUR29.950 million respectively. All three operators are expected to appeal the ruling.

Apps and free messenger services such as BkackBerry Messenger (BBM), WhatsApp and on-line facebook chats have been eating away at mobile operators’ revenues from text messages. As users increasingly adopt free messaging services, mobile operators’ around the world have begun feeling the added pressure of declining SMS revenue. As per industry reports, the mobile industry reported losses of over US$ 10 billion due to declining text messages sent by users. Further, analysts believe that revenues will continue to fall if operators’ do not come up with better strategies and facilities. However, analysts also claim that while SMS revenues have witnessed a decline, they will continue to be used by mobile users. Further, the revenue generated through the increasing mobile data usage is much higher than that lost by text revenues.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has cut down the interconnection charges for short messaging service (SMS) among telecom operators, in an attempt to provide users with more affordable rates for sending text messages. According to reports, the regulatory authority has ordered that the interconnection charge for SMS between two separate telecommunications networks should not exceed $0.003 (15 centavos) per SMS through its Memorandum Circular No. 02-10-2011. Consequently, the new rates will come down by $0.005 (20 centavos) from $0.008 (35 centavos).

As per sources, Gamaliel Cordoba, NTC Commissioner has said that the enactment of the new SMS interconnection rates was in line was in line with the provisions of the Public Telecommunications Policy Act of the Philippines, which seeks the establishment of fair and reasonable interconnection among public operators and other telecommunications service providers at reasonable and fair cost. He further said that the reduced SMS interconnection rate would translate to lower retail price of text messaging services and make the popular telecommunication services more accessible and affordable to a greater number of people throughout the country. Currently, telecom operators charge a rate of $0.002 (10 centavos) per text message within their network, however the rates for messages sent across different operators increase with the additional cost of the network receiving the text message along with the interconnection charge of $0.008 (35 centavos) per message.

Further, under the same circular, network operators were also ordered to ensure that they have the adequate facilities required to guarantee that 99 percent of the text messages reach their destination within 30 seconds of being sent. In order to achieve this, it is proposed that all networks involved in the interconnection should provide the required links or circuits to effectively handle their SMS traffic.

­Value Added Services (VAS) currently represents a major portion of Argentinean operators' revenues (37%), and demonstrated that these services are increasing ARPU at a time when voice service usage is dropping worldwide.

Today Argentina already has approximately 52 million mobile service subscribers, generating around US$7 billion in revenue annually. Acision Mobile VAS Monitor (MAVAM) indicates that SMS is one of the most widely used services contributing to this revenue, with Argentineans sending an average of 270 SMS a month. 97% said they had used SMS in the last three months, with its use being stimulated by the adoption of Smartphones.

Around 16% of mobile subscribers used their phone to send and receive picture messages, during the last three months, a service that is growing as users use images to visualize communication. Another major finding in Argentina is that mobile marketing is received by 89% of users, with 33% of these users stating they receive marketing messages up to two or three times a week.

"In line with our MAVAM research for Brazil and Mexico, the findings from Argentina signify the growing importance of VAS in the region. MAVAM enables us to monitor and highlight which services are delivering high value revenue to the mobile operators and has demonstrated that messaging is still a killer app," said Rafael Steinhauser, Acision's president for Latin America. "Argentina is a growing economy, with a maturing mobile data market. The increasing adoption of VAS in the region represents a significant opportunity for operators to explore new ways to differentiate their services, increase ARPU and drive up profitability."

­Around one text billion messages were sent in China's capital, Beijing last Wednesday on the eve of the Spring Festival - or Chinese New Year, but the flood of greetings actually caused complaints from recipients saying there were too many.

China Mobile said its Beijing users sent 770 million text messages that night, which was up about 13 percent year-on-year. China Unicom reported over 143 million messages, and it is estimated that China Telecom made up the remaining 80 million.

China Mobile's Shanghai users sent 920 million text messages on the same day, up 20 percent, while in Guangdong province, the number of messages sent Wednesday night went up by over 23 percent year-on-year, a report by the semi-official China Daily newspaper claimed.

"God knows how many text messages I received on Spring Festival Eve, it must have been over a hundred. I even received many from people I don't even know," Yin Ni, who runs an online store in Beijing, was quoted as saying.

"I never send such messages because I don't consider pressing the button saying 'send message to all contacts' is sincere. People should realize that the only beneficiaries are the mobile phone operators," said Yin.

This year is the Year of the Rabbit. In Mandarin, the word "rabbit" is pronounced the same as the word "to" in English, so "Happy to you" has become one of the most popular greetings this year.

New research from the Arab Advisors Group reveals that 87%of Arab cellular operators provide the MMS service. The SMS service, which is providedby all mobile operators in the region, is priced quite differently across theregion. Yemen and Palestine have the lowest average SMS rates, while Morocco and Syria have the highest.

The research shows that the rate of SMS including taxes in Moroccois the highest. Morocco's highestrates are followed by Syria,Lebanon, Algeria, Qatar,Kuwait, Libya, UAE, Egypt,Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq,Oman, Bahrain, Sudan,Tunisia, Yemen and Palestine.

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47 out of the 54 mobile operators covered, provide the MMSservice. Eight operators, provide it only on the same network without theability for cross network MMS sending.

A new report, “SMS andMMS rates in the Arab World:

A Regional Comparison” was released to the Arab Advisors Group’s Strategic Research Servicessubscribers on November 7, 2010. This report can be purchased from the ArabAdvisors Group for only US$ 950. The 38-page report, which has 17 detailedexhibits, provides a detailed regional comparison and analysis of the ShortMessaging Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) rates in theArab region. The report covers 54 cellular operators in the following 18countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt,Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait,Lebanon, Libya, Morocco,Oman, Palestine,Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,Syria, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen.

The report’s TOC can be received from the Arab AdvisorsGroup upon request.

Any investment in this report will count towards an annualStrategic Research Service subscription should the service be acquired withinthree months from purchasing the report.

Pleasecontact the Arab Advisors Group to get a copy of the report’s Table ofContents.

“The Arab Advisors Group’s regional analysis shows that theaverage rate of national SMS including taxes for the studied Arab cellularoperators is US$ 0.060 for prepaid and US$ 0.061 for postpaid subscriptions,while the average rate of international SMS stands at US$ 0.161 for prepaid andUS$ 0.160 for postpaid subscriptions. The average international SMS tariffs are2.67 times the average

national SMS tariffs for prepaid customers, and are 2.64times the average

­A brief flurry of statistics was published by the French telecoms regulator without any commentary, but revealed that France had 64.4 million SIM cards in late December 2010. The annual growth rate was around 5% for three quarters, and the penetration rate is almost 100% at the end of 2010 (99.7% to be exact.

The MVNO market share (6.5% against 6.3% in Q4 to Q3) increased with a net growth of 241,000 customers this quarter, representing 14% of the total growth of the 4th quarter 2010 in France.

With 31.1 billion SMS messages sent, the success of SMS continues. Portability has reached 733,000 numbers to the last quarter and 2.28 million over one year (+ 33%).

­The cost of sending an SMS in India may be set for a substantial reduction if the telecoms regulator, TRAI decides it needs to regulate the tariffs. The regulator has long been wary of regulating tariffs, but recent media fuss over the cost of sending an SMS has pushed it into a review of the policy.

"We are going to issue a consultation paper to review telecom tariffs within 20 days to a month.", a TRAI official told The Economic Times newspaper. If regulated, then it is expected that subscribers can see the new tariff rates coming into effect by the end of Q1 2010.

According to the official, the move would have come sooner had the regulator not had its hands full with a consultation process on controversial 3G spectrum issues.

It is widely expected that plunging costs for sending SMS would lead to a huge spike in usage, much as happened in The Philippines, which has one of the highest usages of SMS in the mobile world. Such a move would also be a boon for SMSC vendors as the networks rush to upgrade their messaging capacity.

The newspaper claimed that the true cost of sending an SMS would never have come to light if new entrants into the Indian market had not been forced to sign interconnection agreements with existing operators at a price that is far higher than the actual cost.

Vodafone Fiji has announced new SMS charges for its prepaid subscribers. The on-net tariff has been slashed to FJD 0.15/SMS compared to FJD 0.20 previously. Vodafone will also continue to offer FJD 0.05 on-net promotional text offer from 00:00 to 5:00 daily.

This is a novel concept, instead of billing for a text message of 160 characters like most mobile operators, Indian mobile operator Tata Docomo has just launched a short messaging service, called Diet-SMS, which enables customers to pay on a per-character basis.

“The cost of any Diet-SMS will be only one paise per character used (100 paise= 1 rupee), thereby providing complete value to customers. ”Deepak Gulati, President Tata Docomo said in a statement – “We broke the per-minute pricing paradigm for voice calls when we launched our services. With Diet-SMS, we are doing it again, this time on the SMS front.”Tata Docomo is a frontrunner in the pay-per-use business model in the Indian mobile telephony segment. It will not charge for space between words!

Tata Docomo has launched services in eight telecom circles and a countrywide rollout is expected to be completed this year.

“In all of the eight circles where we have launched our GSM services, we made the promise of introducing path-breaking innovative products and services, and never-before tariff options. Diet-SMS is another way of fulfilling that promise,” said Tata Docomo president Deepak Gulati.

­Mobile messaging vendor, Airwide Solutions has published the results of an independent study on the use of mobile messaging across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The results prove that despite warnings of turmoil throughout the global economy, growth in mobile messaging shows no signs of slowing.

The study shows that the number of people sending text messages (SMS) across the EU is growing 3.3 percent year on year, a figure only beaten by MMS which is growing by 9.2 percent.

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The UK is faring particularly well with over 25 million text messages sent each day. Growth is driven in particular by people who earn over £30,000 as those sending SMS messages every day is increasing 16.9 percent year on year. However, the growth in mobile messaging by those earning less than £30,000 is also doing well with almost 4 percent annual growth of those sending SMS everyday. France is seeing the second biggest increase with 8.1 percent more people sending text messages this year than the same period last year. Interestingly the French have also been the most keen to embrace picture messaging with 15.2 percent more people sending MMS than in 2007 (the biggest increase across Europe).

However, it is not only Europe which is seeing a continued growth in SMS and MMS. Airwide predicts a worldwide growth in mobile messaging over the next few years, particularly in less economically developed and newly industrialised regions such Asia and Africa where fixed lines are expensive and difficult to set up. It is in these regions where mobile phones are being used not only as a communications tool but also as a driver for social change, making communications easier, cheaper and much less time-consuming.

In the Western World, growth will be fuelled by a combination of mobile operators introducing a greater number of personalised services such as out-of-office, auto-forward and storage/back-up capabilities along with a continued uptake in mobile marketing and advertising -- a development which in 2009 will see the introduction of location based mobile advertising.

Jay Seaton, Chief Marketing Officer at Airwide Solutions, commented: "Whilst an increase in mobile messaging traffic is certainly good news for the industry, it also underlines the need to ensure that an operator's underlying infrastructure is efficient and equipped to support the increase in traffic volumes over the years ahead. With most people now relying on their text and picture messages being delivered instantaneously, mobile operators cannot afford for their infrastructure to become congested. As the volume of messaging increases, they also need to be able to protect their networks and subscribers from potential security threats such as mobile fraud, spam and viruses."

Messaging services provider, Acision says that - according to their figures - global SMS traffic over the 2007/2008 New Year period increased by 30 per cent compared to the same period last year. Around the world, phone users sent a total of 43 billion text messages to wish their loved ones a happy New Year - of which more than 23 billion were processed through Acision's systems.

Growth was strong in both mature and emerging markets - in Portugal, SMS traffic almost tripled across the festive period compared to last year and Dutch operator KPN saw its messaging traffic double on New Years Eve.

However the most astounding growth figures came from developing markets, where India's 220 million mobile subscribers sent over a billion text messages - a 300% increase to their day to day traffic levels.

The Philippines retained its title as the text messaging capital of the world - sending a remarkable 1.39 billion text messages from a subscriber base of just 50 million.

Steven van Zanen, Head of Messaging Futures, Acision said: "Messaging represents a significant slice of mobile operator revenues, and events like New Years Eve demonstrate how critical it is for operators to ensure a reliable and speedy service. One of our operator customers' infrastructure operated under peaks of 19,000 messages sent per second without congestion or delay. The New Year figures are eagerly anticipated each year and this year's record traffic levels again do not disappoint."

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